


A Monster Like You

by The_Girl_Who_Got_Tired_of_Waiting



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Bruce Banner & Tony Stark Friendship, Bruce Banner Needs a Hug, Bruce Banner-centric, F/M, Mentions of Bruce/Natasha, Mentions of Suicide, Post-Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), Second person POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-24
Updated: 2015-05-24
Packaged: 2018-04-01 00:43:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3999439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Girl_Who_Got_Tired_of_Waiting/pseuds/The_Girl_Who_Got_Tired_of_Waiting
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You wake up screaming and, for just a moment, you wonder why no one else is there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Monster Like You

You wake up screaming and, for just a moment, you wonder why no one else is there. You wonder why no one has been roused by your yelling, why they haven’t all come running. You wonder why Tony isn’t looking in on you. You’ve told him not to bother. You moved into the tower after the whole business with Loki and more nights than you can count you wake up, throat raw, drenched in sweat, to see Tony standing there. He’d been roused by your yelling, that at times sounded more like roaring. His face had been so gentle then, not mocking or joking or bored or distracted, just so deeply concerned for you as he asked you again and again if you were okay, and you told him not to bother. You were fine. You would live. It was nothing for him to leave his room for. But he still did. You look towards the doorway, but he’s not there now. 

Nor is Natasha. You search for her, trying to pick out her lithe form the darkness around you, looking for a flash of red hair, or those piercing eyes. She could see right through you, and for a while, you let her. You even reach one hand out across the sheets, which is the move of a foolish, sleep addled mind. You and Natasha never shared a bed. Besides, your brain is waking up now, and you are starting to know that she isn’t here at all. 

Neither is Steve, or Clint. Thor probably isn’t even on this planet. 

There’s not even that familiar, calm voice filtering to you through a hidden speaker, JARVIS, asking if you are okay, if you need assistance. 

You close your eyes again for a moment and breathe deeply. When you open your eyes again, you focus on your actual surroundings, not the ones you wish were there. Everything is slightly blurred because you lost your glasses at some point, and you have no intention of replacing them any time soon. That would involve interaction with another human being, and the whole point of being here is to avoid just that. You like this faded version of reality a little better anyway. You can see well enough to take in the rough wooden walls of the cabin, light creeping in around the door. You’ll have to fix that at some point, make something more solid than a flimsy door that could give in with one strong kick. 

You sit up on the thin bed mat, casting your blanket aside and are again reminded of the things you keep telling yourself you must do if you are to stay here. Build a bed. A platform to keep your mat off the floor in the winter months. Fix the hole in the roof. Stop the damn stove from going out in the night. It’s been hot since you got here but you know it’s going to get cold, bitterly so, before too long. 

Unless you move on. Find somewhere else. 

_Go back home._

No. Not home. 

Monsters don’t get to have homes.

You get up, pull on the same shirt and jeans you’ve been wearing for five days now, and fold the bedding away neatly. There’s no separate bedroom in the cabin. Just one square room, with the stove in the corner. You’ve kept the place deliberately empty, not even a chair. Just an upturned crate to use as a table. You’ve been on the run before, so you know how this works. Don’t tie yourself down with possessions, useless items. People. 

There are no windows in the cabin either, so you prop the door open to let the light in. Near blinding sunlight streams in and you find yourself squinting and half shrinking back from it. It’s probably already past midday. You slept for much longer than you intended to. 

Your brain can’t help but do the mental calculation, counting the hours, to figure out what time it is in New York right now. The middle of the night, or the middle of the next day, or the day before. They could be awake too. Clint could be holding his baby in his arms, or Steve could be trying to work a smart phone, or Natasha could be smiling, relaxing in the way she only does when she thinks no one is looking. And you wouldn’t know. You’re not there to see it. 

They could be sleeping, or eating or talking. (They could be looking for you, but you know, realistically, they probably gave that up long ago. You hope they gave up.)

You used to know the time difference off by heart but you’re getting vaguer about it now. That’s a good thing. You aren’t meant to be thinking about New York. You aren’t meant to be thinking at all. 

To stave off conscious thought beyond the here and now, you set about doing those tasks that you absolutely need to do. You go outside to relieve yourself, come back and set about relighting the stove. Like a caveman on a prehistoric spit of rock, you need fire, first and foremost. Fire to boil the water to make it safe to drink, fire to cook on, fire to scare off whatever might be living in the trees beyond the cabin door. It takes several attempts to get a spark to catch. 

All of your supplies are getting low. The pile of wood by the door has dwindled. You use the last of the tea. Even the water in the plastic tub outside is nearly all gone. You need it to rain again soon, even if the roof does still leak. 

You remember eating the last of the food yesterday. That’s not the end of the world. You can go a day without eating. You’ve lasted far longer than the before. The woman from the village down the mountain who told you about this place had offered to have food brought up to you regularly. You declined, of course. You’ll walk down into the village tomorrow. Or the day after. Or you’ll gather what you can from the forest. 

You could even hunt here, if you were so inclined. But you’re not inclined. You’re not going to kill anything else unless you have to, certainly not just because you get a little hungry. There’s already red in your ledger; no sense in making it worse. 

There is a noise by the door and you jump, so violently that you kick over your mug, sending the dregs of your tea flying. You’re on your feet in an instant and facing the possible intrusion with your pulse already elevated dangerously high. 

The cat just meows at you again. 

You breathe in and out, shakily. Of course it is just the cat. It had come by first about a week ago, and it had looked so skinny you could see its ribs. And, forgetting every vow you made about limiting contact with all other living creatures, you took pity on it, and gave it scraps from your plate. And, of course, it came back the next day, and because you are a weak, stupid man you fed it again. After that, it was only natural that it (she) _it_ would keep coming back. 

Now you don’t have any food left to share and this has to stop. You came here to stay away from everyone and everything. 

The cat mewls again, managing to sound both hopeful and pitiful at the same time. 

“Go away,” you mumble. The cat completely ignores you and in fact trots inside the cabin a few paces. 

“Go. Away,” you repeat. You are instinctively using English, despite the fact this animal has probably never even heard English before. “I’m not feeding you, so go.” 

You walk over and try to shoo the creature out of the door. It rubs against your leg. You are suddenly, irrationally angry at this little cat’s insistence.

“Go!” Your voice doesn’t sound like your own anymore. 

You do not kick the cat, but you stamp at the ground near it. The cat hisses and springs away from you, turning tail and scampering away out through the open door. Your shoulders slump as you watch it go. You do not feel angry anymore. Now all you feel is a dull kind of guilt, which is ludicrous, because you’ve got far bigger things to feel guilty over than scaring away a stray cat.

You shuffle over to the door and watch the spot in the trees where the cat disappeared. The forest stretches in all directions, as the mountain slopes steeply behind you. The nearest village is at least half a day’s walk from here. Hardly anybody comes up here. Poachers, occasionally. They never come too close to where you are, and if they did, you’d kill the fire, block the door and lie still in the hut, waiting for them to pass. Other than that, you’re alone. 

It’s almost safe enough for you to be able to let go. The Other Guy could run for miles up here without encountering another person, if you let him. 

You need another distraction. 

You decide to start with the fire wood. 

~

It’s hot, and you’re sweating by the time you’ve gathered enough to replenish your supply and chopped it down to size with the dull axe you keep propped inside by the door. The closest you have to a weapon out here. 

You give in to the temptation to strip off your shirt and use it to dab at your face, wishing for that fresh water even more now. 

The sun is bright, and shines through the leaves, patterning the earth. Exotic birds are singing. No traffic noise. No planes over head. No one talking, or laughing, or just being, other than you and you are barely even half managing one of the above these days. 

You used to find beauty in moments like this. Moments of peace that helped to calm the constant turmoil at your core. Now you find yourself wanting to turn, to look to someone else to share in the moment with you, and feel all the worse for there being no one there for you to see. Even the Other Guy has gone quiet on you lately. You’re so used to being able to feel his emotions running alongside and in constant battle with your own that it’s usually a relief when you can’t feel it for a while. 

Now it’s like he’s sulking, punishing you with silence. Maybe he is mourning what you’ve left behind too, and in that case you’re more in sync than you’d ever like to admit. The last time you and the Other Guy agreed on anything was when he brought you away from there. 

Maybe he is compliant enough now to allow you the most obvious route out. A bullet hadn’t worked before, but maybe it would a second time. 

No. Of course not. He might be docile for now, but his will to live outweighs your desire not to and any attempt you might make would bring him roaring forward, the very thing you must avoid. He’d spit out that bullet all over again. Your neck would expand and he’d rip the noose apart without even using his hands. Spilling your radioactive blood is out of the question. You jump, and you’d be him before you even hit the ground. Natasha had proved that.

And there you are, thinking of her again. Thinking of her at the same time as you are thinking about death and destruction and eliminating the ways in which you could end your own life. That’s not a healthy way to think about one of the people that you cherish above all else. Somehow, for you, it is normal. 

Her words echo over and over until the words lose all meaning, semantic satiation, inside your skull. 

_I adore you, I adore you, I adore you._

You’d have run with her, not from her and for a while you allowed yourself to believe that was possible. The two of you, starting over somewhere new together. But she’s not the running kind. She’s braver, more loyal than you could ever be, by wanting to run and staying put. And you have far too much capacity to break the things you care about the most. If you think you are on constant high alert now it is nothing, nothing compared to how you would have to be if you spent every day alone with Natasha. 

That is what you tell yourself whenever you are tempted. Whenever you think of Natasha for too long, and your throat aches with the want to talk to her. Whenever the sun is so hot on your parched skin that you find yourself nostalgic for acres of cool, clean lab space and nobody but Tony Stark and JARVIS whatever is on the radio for company. Whenever your fingertips tingle with the need to touch another person’s skin, to feel connected to someone else even for a few seconds. You take those moments and use them to remind yourself why you are here. It is not for saving your own skin. 

It is for them. Always and forever, it is for their sakes. They would try and convince you otherwise, lie through their teeth as they tell you that you are better, stronger as a team. And you remind yourself that they are wrong, that they are so much safer, so much happier in the long run, for you not being there. 

And it is enough to keep you here. 

Almost, but not quite enough, to stop you from thinking about them anyway.


End file.
